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The Formal Reception Room
'The Formal Reception Room' When the new Tsar and Tsaritsa moved into the Alexander Palace, they did extensive re-decorating as many of the previous inhabitants/rulers of Imperial Russia saw to. Raised in a pre-dominately English environment but principally of full-German descent, Prinzessin Alix Victoria Helena Luise Beatrice von Hessen und bei Rhein was very practical in her decorating ideals, and her home-life. She wanted a environment that would keep everyone relaxed and at rest, from the innate and tiring protocol of the Russian Imperial Court. Their Imperial Majesty's took the East Wing of the Alexander Palace as their primary residence and it was not too long after the horrific events of 1905, that the Imperial Family moved permanently into the palace. It was here at the Alexander Palace where the Imperial Family recided up until 1917, when after the Empereur was forced by the Bolsheviks to give up his rights to the Throne, the Imperial Family were put under house-arrest in their own palace and put under strict regulations, which after they left the Alexander Palace steadily had gotten worse and worse, until that fateful night of July 17th, 1918. Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna was a patron of the arts, and especially the Art Nouveau. She enjoyed and loved bright and very comfortable interiors instead of the very elaborate interiors and palaces she could have picked from. She decorated the Alexander Palace in this way, and her decor and ideals show very beautifully and sentimentally as she always wished it to be seen as in her private world. One of the most formal, and also part of the Her Imperial Majesty's Private Suite of apartments was the Formal Reception Room. It was also one of the official recieving rooms, of Their Imperial Majesties. Empress Alexandra Feodorovna used this room to talk in private to dignitaries and officials of the Imperial Court, and different countries. The Empress' Formal Reception Room was entered either two ways. One entrance was through a tall double door which exited into the Ground Floor corridor, which was basically the main access to most of Their Imperial Majesties private apartments, which were located on opposite sides of the East Wing of the Alexander Palace. The other entrances were also two very tall-double doors which then had entrance to the other official state-rooms of the Alexander Palace. The Empress' Formal Reception Room was the start of the official apartments, and from there one could enter the Small Library, which was one of several Libraries housing the Imperial Family's immense collection of tomes and documents. This interior itself was one of the spaces that was not re-decorated architecturally as in many photographs can be seen the distinct entablature that crowned the cornice of the high ceiling of the room. This entablature was the mark of Giacomo Quarenghi, who was the man who planned the architectural wonder that became known, forevermore as the Alexander Palace. Seven tall windows looked out onto the immense Alexander Park. These seven windows all were draped over with heavy cranberry curtains, and a inner drapery made of thin lace. The red of the cranberry draperies set off magnificently with the snowy-white walls of the space, which were covered with white-artifical marble, topped by Quarenghi's entablature with its distinct crisp and clean molding. Of all the Imperial Family's private spaces, this interior was preserved in the austere late eighteenth-century style which was what Empress Catherine II (Catherine the Great) had intended for her grandson (Tsar Alexander I) when she had the palace built for him. Of the many rooms of the Alexander Palace, this space in particular contained some of the finest furniture in the interiors of Their Imperial Majesties. There was a roll-top desk, which housed a unique musical mechanism, which was designed by the infamous German cabinet-maker David Roentgen. It dated from the time the Alexander Palace was built, and may possibly have been given as a gift to the future Tsar Alexander I, and his new wife Elizabeth. This roll-top desk was Her Imperial Majesty's formal writing desk, and was considered to be one of the most valuable pieces of art-work in the palace. After the Revolution, this said desk was evacuated to Moscow, where it was then sent to Sankt. Petersbourg to the Hermitage (The former Winter Palace, capital residence of the Imperial Family) Museum where today it still stands. Museum workers, substituted one of two writing desks which were also designed by Roentgen, and may possibly have been the writing desks of Tsar Alexander I, and his wife Elizabeth Alexeievna (Prinzessin Louise von Baden. Among this roll-top desk, were many pieces of eighteenth-century style furniture, set across a immense Savonnerie carpet which covered a dark-gold parquet floor. In the center of the high ceiling, hung a beautiful crystal chandelier, with a ruby-red blown glass center, which was typical of the Russian manner. The ruby-red colour was obtained by adding the colour of gold to the molten glass before it is blown into it's delicate shapes by the glass-maker. The chandelier like many other pieces in this room dated back to the epoch of Empress Catherine II, and was most definitely an original decoration of this space. After the horrific events of the French Revolution, which had toppled the Royal House of France (the Bourbons) there were many auctions by the new French Government, where they were selling off pieces from the former Royal residences. Catherine the Great, sent representatives who had attended these auctions, and as the Alexander Palace was being built at the time of these auctions it is most definitely a possibility that some of the former furnishings of the French royal residences may have found their way to the Alexander Palace. Of these furnishings, there were two ivory screens, covered in tapestry which seem, from documented pictures of this interior to come from the reign of King Louis XVI and appear to bear the French Royal monogram. The Court Decorator, Roman F. Meltzer in 1896 made some additional pieces of furniture, such as a charming kosy-korner in the eighteenth-century style. All of the chairs, and settee's were covered with the same apple-green Louis XVI material which then tied the pieces into a suite.